TADC episode 9 Spoilers (and kind of a rant) ahead:
I get disliking Jax, everyone's allowed to just not like characters, no big deal. But I disagree with the whole "causing two abstractions" argument.
Jax DOES blame himself for Ribbit and Kaufmo's abstractions, and we only see his PoV so it's easy to see why he'd think it's his fault... Yes he was an asshole and an idiot, yes it had negative effects on them, no his trauma doesn't justify it. But he wasn't the only person in the Circus.
Ragatha, Kinger and Kaufmo were there when Ribbit was alive. No one reached out to her when she was obviously getting depressed. She isolated herself and it's like nobody noticed or took the time to check on her. We see Kaufmo ask "what's up with Ribbit lately?" to Jax, but it's unsure if he asked HER though. Later, Ragatha ask Jax if he saw Ribbit at all that day, but not only does it sound like it's the end of the day, but Jax had the time to go to Ribbit's door two times, taking a coffee between them, before we see she abstracted. Which means that no one bothered to check on her for a whole day at minimum (not even Kaufmo), and I THINK that if ANYONE had actually paid attention to her and noticed how down she had been, and cared about it, they wouldn't have waited so long to go see her. They wouldn't have left her alone.
It means Ribbit had no support system and was basically left to die by EVERYONE. Not just Jax.
Then Kaufmo began obsessing over the exit. No one took him seriously, no one listened. No support system, just like Ribbit. He wasn't even checked on before Pomni's arrival, who knows for how long. We all saw what the walls of his room looked like in episode 1, showcasing how mad he was getting. THIS is what drove him to abstraction. Not Jax being mean to him once.
On top of everything, the context of being stuck in the Circus is a major reason for abstraction. It would be silly to ignore that very important detail.
In summary, you can blame Jax for being an ass. But you can't blame him for the abstractions, unless you blame EVERYONE else, too (which I don't think you should do either).
Abstraction is like suicide: it's not just ONE factor that causes one to abstract, but a bunch of them. It doesn't happen overnight, it happens overtime, when your pain just keep getting heavier and heavier and you can't handle it anymore. It's NEVER just one person causing it, and it's fucked up to blame someone for someone else's suicide. Just because we only see Jax's POV (which is already biased because of his own self-hatred) doesn't mean there was nothing more going on.
I still love Jax with and because of all his flaws, and I can see why others would dislike him, and I wouldn't argue against that. But blaming him for anyone's abstraction is just wrong, and too easy. We saw that the ONE thing keeping the humans from abstracting is a proper support system. People reaching out. Checking on each other everyday. Pomni just had to knock on his door and get him out of his room to save him the first time (and perhaps he could've saved Ribbit the same way if he had dared knock on her door...). It never was Jax's sole responsability to support two whole people. They're all responsible for themselves AND each other.
Hate him for a better reason please 😔
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